Riot police in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, have clashed with supporters of an armed group barricaded with hostages inside a police station.<\/p>\n
Dozens of protesters were hurt. Three gunmen were wounded in earlier clashes.<\/p>\n
The group stormed the building nearly two weeks ago seeking the release of “political prisoners” including opposition leader Jirair Sefilian.<\/p>\n
Mr Sefilian has strongly criticised President Serge Sarkisian’s handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.<\/p>\n
Police with truncheons and stun grenades charged at protesters shouting “Free independent Armenia” and “Serge, leave!”.<\/p>\n
Sputnik Armenia news agency said as many as 60 people had been injured in the riots and about 40 were still being treated in hospital.<\/p>\n
Radio Liberty<\/a> said three of its journalists were among the injured and that a camera was smashed.<\/p>\n More than 100 people were reportedly detained by police.<\/p>\n The three gunmen who were wounded sustained their injuries in a shootout earlier on Friday.<\/p>\n They were apparently shot in the legs by snipers. Two of them were escorted to hospital under armed guard.<\/p>\n The group seized the police station on 17 July, killing one policeman and taking several hostages. Some of the captives have since been freed.<\/p>\n They released a video demanding the release of Mr Sefilian and a number of others, and urging supporters on to the streets.<\/p>\n The CivilNet newspaper<\/a> identified the group as the Daredevils of Sassoun.<\/p>\n The group has been quoted as saying it will retaliate if attacked and has no intention of surrendering.<\/p>\n Mr Sefilian, a former military commander, has criticised the government’s handling of the long-running conflict involving pro-Armenian separatists in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has an ethnic Armenian majority. A bloody war erupted after the end of Soviet rule in 1988, and there has been frequent unrest since, the latest in April<\/a>, when clashes left dozens dead.<\/p>\n bbc.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Riot police in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, have clashed with supporters of an armed group barricaded with hostages inside a police station. Dozens of protesters were hurt. Three gunmen were wounded in earlier clashes. The […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}